Columbia, SC Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Section 4-35 sets the ground rules for backyard hens in Columbia. A single premise may keep no more than four hens, and roosters are banned outright regardless of lot size. Each hen must live in a coop at least 18 inches tall with a minimum of two square feet of floor area per bird over four months old, attached to a fully enclosed run sized to the flock: nine square feet for one bird, 12 for two, 16 for three, or 20 square feet for four birds. Coops and runs must be predator-proof and, if they sit within 25 feet of a side or rear lot line or within 50 feet of a neighbor's house, screened by shrubbery or a privacy fence. Owners must clean the run regularly to prevent odor or fly problems, and slaughtering chickens on the premises is prohibited, as is raising chickens for commercial sale or selling eggs from city flocks. Before keeping any hens, an owner needs a zoning permit for the coop as an accessory structure from the Planning and Development Services Department and a certificate of inspection from the Animal Control Division, which carries an annual $5.00-per-bird inspection fee and requires proof the owner received an informational session on hen care and coop maintenance.

Other livestock and fowl fare worse under Article II. Section 4-32 bans keeping hogs or pigs anywhere in the city outright, and Section 4-33 prohibits raising or maintaining any other live fowl or rabbits, chickens being the sole carve-out. Section 4-34 bars owning livestock or live fowl, running a stable or riding academy, or dealing in livestock unless the pens sit at least 500 feet from any residential, commercial, church, school or institutional structure and are kept clean and permitted by county and state rules too. Section 4-31 separately makes it unlawful to let horses, mules, swine, sheep, goats, cattle or fowl run at large anywhere in the city.